Knock, knock: Special Delivery for IIDEX

This year during IIDEX, 18-wheeler truck trailer interiors will be transformed into unexpected environments. Each trailer belongs to a leading industry manufacturer, and each installation is inspired by and incorporates advanced technologies, special materials and/or processes. Created by contemporary designers and artists responding to both the mobile space of the trailers and to the work of a specific manufacturer, Special Delivery conveys a unique dialogue on and expression of collaboration, creativity and industry.

Special Delivery features artist and designer Scott Eunson with Wilsonart International; multi-media artist Christina Zeidler with Hewlett Packard International; design studio FUGITIVE GLUE with the INSPIRE Group; and artists Jade Rude and Orest Tataryn with D4. Working in collaboration, this project is curated by Shaun Moore and Julie Nicholson of MADE, and Jeremy Vandermeij and Deborah Wang of Toronto Design Offsite.

On September 20 and 21 and traveling from the Direct Energy Centre, they open their doors to the public on Queen Street West and Gladstone Avenue, for one night and one day only.

CHRISTINA ZEIDLER is a film and video artist with over thirty short film and video titles in distribution, which have shown internationally at festivals and appeared on television and the web. Christina was named one of Toronto’s 10 best Filmmakers by Cameron Bailey and won the Best Canadian Media Award at the 2004 Images Film Festival. Zeidler is also one half of the euro-electronica-pop-diva sensation “ina unt ina” and part of the newly formed band “Mintz”.

SCOTT EUNSON has been exploring the grey area between the realms of art and design, creating sculptural pieces in a variety of materials. Over the past fifteen years, he has exhibited in solo and group shows to critical success. Eunson produced several large public art works for the TTC and City of Toronto in collaboration with artist Marianne Lovink.

FUGITIVE GLUE is a Toronto-based multi-disciplinary design studio. Comprised of a diverse team of rogue agents working within the fields of industrial design, graphic design, branding, web development, copywriting, and fine art, we are equipped to handle any creative challenge. Through a design practice called “UPHOARDING”, FG develops its own products that require inventing, designing and manufacturing new lives for post-consumer waste materials. We hope to encourage this practice through continued involvement in community-focused art and design installations.

OREST TATARYN is a practicing artist / designer / curator who has developed a specific path in the direction of using light as his expressive medium. This occupation started in 1988 with a neon shop which became the foundation for the guerrilla art collective “Skunkworks / Outlaw Neon” of which Tataryn was a principal founder. Tataryn has resumed a solo studio practice since 2004, and the relationships between light, colour, and shadow are the constant and conscious challenges and inspiration in his work.

JADE RUDE is interested in employing perception-shifting tactics to playfully examine the relationship between reality and representation. Much of Rude’s practice is based on mimicking popular and commonplace objects in order to address their surface aesthetics, exploring the ways in which they are readily signified by their outward appearance, and disrupting our familiar responses to them.

MARCIA HUYER studied sculpture at the Ontario College of Art & Design, and completed her MFA in 2006 at the University of Victoria. She has exhibited internationally and nationally, primarily in artist-run centres, such as the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; Hamilton Artist’s Inc; Artspace (Peterborough); and the Khyber Art Centre (Halifax). She has also participated in projects such as Toronto’s Nuit Blanche, WADE (Toronto), and CAFKA ‘07 (Kitchener). Huyer has been working with the medium of inflation since 2003, creating installations that confront the viewer physically, mentally, and emotionally. Her installations welcome the spectator to be turned on by its questionable beauty, momentarily capturing them from time by extending an alternative place of imagination and contemplation.

ROBERT HENGEVELD is an installation and multi-media artist whose work explores the boundaries between reality and fiction, and where we find ourselves within that relationship. He is currently living and working in Toronto, Canada, and completed his MFA at the University of Victoria in 2005 and studied at the Ontario College of Art & Design. He began his art practice at Georgian College, where he received a Certificate and Diploma in Fine Arts.

About the Curators

DEBORAH WANG is an independent curator, designer and educator with a background in art and architecture. She is a former co-curator of the annual exhibition ‘Come Up To My Room’ (2009-2012), a co-founder and Creative Director of the Toronto Design Offsite Festival, and a co-founder of FEAST Toronto, a series of community dinners and micro-funding events supporting local art and design. Deborah also teaches design studio at Ryerson University, and is a designer at superkul inc | architect.

JEREMY VANDERMEIJ is a co-founder and Executive Director of Toronto Design Offsite Festival, partner and co-founder of Public Displays of Affection, a local community engaged design organization, Director of Marketing at the Gladstone Hotel, Communications and Marketing Coordinator at the Institute Without Boundaries, producer and former co-curator of ‘Come Up To My Room’ (2009-2011), and runs his own creative generalist practice. He specializes in sponsorship, media, advertising, marketing &PR.

SHAUN MOORE and JULIE NICHOLSON are owners of MADE, a design studio and retailer of original Canadian designed and produced furniture, lighting, textiles and accessories. The partnership engages in the design of objects and interiors, installations, curatorial projects, commissions and collaborations with artists and designers. Shaun and Julie are co-founders of Toronto Design Offsite Festival. They also curate and produce ‘Radiant Dark’, an annual exhibition of new Canadian design objects.